Vegas Road Trip

Over Memorial Day weekend my oldest son had a basketball tournament in Las Vegas. So, a few days before we left, I took my truck to the local dealership to have the seat-belt recall fixed. I also asked them to rotate and balance my tires. I also asked they the inspect the tires for any type of funny wearing. After I got the truck back, they said they all four tires and spare were good. The morning we left I did the visual inspections of the lights, turn signals, wipers, I also walked around and just looked at my tires. All seemed good

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So, Saturday night we played in a late game that didn’t get over until 10:00 PM and we were a 30-minute drive back to the hotel. As we exited the interstate for hotel my tire pressure Gage went of saying that my driver side rear tire was losing air pressure and fast. Because this exit we used to get back to the hotel to avoid driving down the strip we had to turn right then drive down about a half a mile then make a U-turn and come back to the hotel. I knew as fast as I was losing air pressure that I would never make it back to the hotel Parking garage. I pulled into a Shell gas station. (where there was plenty of lights and a nice flat spot to park away from the gas pumps.) Granted this wasn’t probably the safest part of town but I had to get off the road and change the tire. While still in the truck I come up with a plan that my wife and youngest are going to stay in the truck until I get the lug nuts busted loose and ready to jack the truck up. The other part of the plan was that my oldest was going to get out and just watch my back and alert me if anyone is walking over to us.

We get out of the truck I did a quick walk around my truck, so I am aware of my surroundings. I get the jack and tire iron out. I drop my spare tire, then I quickly go to work busting the lug nuts loose. As I start on the last lug nut my factory tire iron doesn’t fit on it. The lug nuts look as if something has chewed on it messing it all up. By this point I am frustrated and mad as hell because of where we are at the tire iron isn’t fitting on the lug nut and 3 days earlier the dealership just rotated and balanced my tires. My wife sees that I am quickly getting frustrated and wants me to call Triple A or Roadside Assistance.  Long story short, I wasn’t going to quick that easy.  I jacked the truck up so there was no pressure on the wheel, grabbed my tire iron and a large crescent wrench and hammed the side of the tire iron with the wrench until it smashed itself onto the bad lug nut. I was able to get the tires switched out, and on our way.  The next day I had the tire patched and bought a new lug nut.

Moral of my story is, I will always take my tire iron and walk around and make sure each lug nut fits into the tire iron and are as tight before I travel anywhere.